How To Train A Dragon Rider
by shooting blindly
Summary: Hiccup fucks up. Hiccups tries to fix it. Hiccup gets more than he bargained for. Basically, almost a re-write of how to train your dragon, with some creative license taken. Probably not as boring as it sounds, so give it a shot. Rated for some bad language.
1. Chapter 1

Right, um... all the rights belong to dreamworks, and any other parties involved. I just thought I'd try my hand at this. Enjoy!

Chapter One: In Which I Fuck Up Once Again

Berk. My village. In a word: sturdy. It's been here for seven generations, but every single building is new. We have fishing, hunting, and a charming view of the sunsets. The only problems are the pests.

You see, most places have mice or mosquitoes. We have dragons.

Most people would leave. Not us. We're vikings. We have stubbornness issues, something my boss and my father never let me forget. I know what they would say now.

_Get back inside, Hiccup! _

_But dad, the door is on fucking fire, _I would reply. But he wouldn't hear me, and I would ignore his instructions anyway. I'm not exactly supposed to be out during a dragon raid. I tend to mess things up and make life infinitely more difficult for the other vikings, so they tell me to keep inside.

"Wha're you doing? Get inside!" someone hisses at me as they rush past.

"Get back inside," a woman tells me somewhat petulantly. I run past the guard, who is too busy examining whatever gross unhygienic shit he pulled out of his ear to notice me.

I run towards the shop, where I know I've stored my net launcher. I gotta catch a dragon. Catch it, and kill it, to regain my honour.

_Come on, come on, come on. Get to the shop before the damn attack is over, _I tell myself.

"Hiccup!" Someone pulls me backwards, and I feel the heat of dragon fire burn the air in front of me. The earth suddenly disappears from under my feet, and as I turn to thank whoever it is who saved me and to ask them to put me the fuck back down, I'm met with the stony, stormy expression on my dad's face.

_Oh, shit. _

"What is he doing out agai-" he stops himself and turns to me. "What are you doing out?" I open my mouth to answer, but he gets to it first. "Get inside." He shoves me away impatiently, like he has more important things to deal with. Which… I guess he does.

"'I'm Stoick the Vast! I ripped the head off of a dragon when I was a wee babe,'" I mutter under my breath as I walk into the shop.

Gobber, my boss and the owner of the shop, looks up at me.

"Oh, nice of you to join the party!" he says sarcastically. He's in the middle of hammering a twisted blade back into shape. I stare at the stump at the end of his left arm, and at the hammer he's attached to it for now, and I wonder, not for the first time, how many hands he's made for himself.

"I thought you'd been carried off," he remarks.

"Who, me?" I tie my leather working apron behind my back. "Naw, come on, I'm waaaay too muscular for their taste." I grunt as I pick up a stone hammer that has been thrown on the ground and set it back in its place. It's heavy enough that I need two hands to lift it, but I've long since stopped worrying about my pride around Gobber. I've been his apprentice since I was little, or littler, so he's been there to witness all my failures and the small number of successes I've had in my life. "They wouldn't know what to do with _all _this," I gesture to myself ironically.

"Ah, well they need toothpicks, don't they?" he says, switching his hammer hand for a set of pliers. I roll my eyes, but I'm smiling. Someone drops damaged equipment off at the front, and I rush to bring them back to the forge, setting them on the fire and stocking it so that Gobber can bend them back into shape with his interchangeable left hand. In the distance, I see yet another house burn to the ground, and I wonder who my dad will enlist to rebuild it this time.

I set the dented-now-repaired sword Gobber was working on earlier on the counter for some viking to use, and I catch a glimpse of the other teenaged vikings. They're stronger than me, and they don't fuck things up on a regular basis, so they're allowed to do something on the battle field. Even such a small job as setting out fires like they do is entirely out of bounds for me.

Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruff and Tuffnut, and Astrid. All of them only carrying buckets of water and still managing to look five times more impressive than I do.

_Oh, their job is so much cooler. _I make to scramble over the counter we have in the front of the shop, ready to go out and kill something, but Gobber grabs me first.

"Eh!" he says, grabbing my collar with the pliers.

"Oh. come _on. _Let me out, please? I need to make my mark," I say. He's holding me above the ground, and I slump at the reminder of how small I am.

"Oh, you've made plenty of marks; all in the wrong places," he says, poking my chest with the pliers for emphasis.

"Please, two minutes. I'll kill a dragon, my life will get infinitely better," I pause. "I might even get a date!" I gesture outside, in the general direction of Astrid. Odin knows, I'd never get a date with her regardless of whether I kill a dragon or not, but a guy can dream.

"You can't lift a hammer, you can't swing an axe, you can't even throw one of these!" He picks up a set of bolas, and someone grabs them from him and throws them at a dragon, twisting its legs with the rope.

"Ok, fine," I say, backing up. "But this will throw it for me." I pat the machine I've built to throw a multitude of dragon-catching devices. and, of course, because the gods hate me, the machine throws a net directly into the face of a very surprised viking. His helmet flies off his head and he falls backwards with a thud. Gobber sighs irritatedly.

"See, now this right here is what I'm talking about."

"It's a mild...calibration issue," I stammer.

"No, no, Hiccup." Gobber raises a hand to stop me and points his pliers at me. "If you ever want to get out there to fight dragons, you need to stop all…" he searches for a word, "this," he gestures towards me. I look down at myself.

"But you just pointed to all of me," I say with a roll of my shoulders.

"Yes," he says proudly, sticking me in the shoulder with his real hand. "That's it. Stop being all of you."

"Ohh," I say threateningly.

"Oh, yeah," Gobber says, staring me down. I point a finger at him in warning.

"You, sir, are playing a dangerous game. Keeping this much… raw… vikingness contained! There will be consequences!" I warn him.

"I'll take my chances. Sword. Sharpen. Now." He dumps a sword into my arms. I sag under its weight, and carry it over to the whetstone, pressing the blade to the spinning rock. Sparks fly from the sword, and I squint my eyes, hoping against hope that none of them will get into my eyes.

_I doubt an eyepatch would make me look any more threatening, _I think to myself. _One day, I'll get out there. Because killing a dragon is everything around here. _

A Nadderhead is sure to at least get me noticed. Gronckles are tough. Taking down one of those would definitely get me a girlfriend. A Zippleback? Exotic. Two heads, twice the status. And then, there's the monstrous Nightmare. Only the best vikings go after those. They have this nasty habit of setting themselves on fire.

But the ultimate prize is the dragon no one's ever seen: we call it the -

"Night Fury!" someone screams.

"Get down!" someone else shouts. A tower explodes behind them, and my dad comes flying from the top, fire blowing up behind him.

This dragon never steals food, never shows itself, and _never_ misses.

Another tower explodes, and a streak of black flies away from it.

No one has ever killed a Night Fury; that's why I'm gonna be the first.

A crash sounds outside and Gobber runs to the window, watching fire and rubble streak down from the sky. He unscrews the pliers from his hand, and replaces them with a battle axe.

"Man the fort, Hiccup. They need me out there." He stalks towards the shop's entrance, and suddenly whirls around and points at me. "Stay. Put. There." A pause. "You know what I mean." And then he rushed off, shouting a battle cry. I watch him go. As soon as I can't see him, I rush to the back of my shop and wheel my machine out as fast as I can. I rattle past the people outside waiting to get their swords sharpened or something.

"Hiccup!"

"Sorry!" I yell back.

"Where are you going?"

"Yeah, I know, I'll be right back." I run past my dad, who is wrangling a Nadderhead and winning. All in a day's work for the chieftain.

I get to the edge of our village, a small piece of land hanging over the sea, and set up my machine. I stare through the sight, looking for something to shoot.

"Come on, gimme something to shoot at, gimme something to shoot at," I mumble. A dragon roars, and I hear a whirring sound. That can only be the sound of a Night Fury's wings slicing through the air. I adjust my grip on the wood.

Something black moves, and i only see it because it hides the stars, but it looks distinctly dragon-shaped. I stare at it through the sight, and try to time my shot right. A tower explodes in blue fire, and I chase the black shape that flies away from it with my machine.

I hold my breath and shoot. The recoil sends me flying back, and i scramble to get up, to see if I actually shot that thing. I'm not disappointed.

I hear the roar of a dragon as it goes down, trees snapping under its weight.

"Oh, I hit it," I say to myself disbelievingly. I jump up, arms flying upwards in victory. "Yes, I hit it!" I whirl around, looking for an audience. "Did anybody see that?" A growl makes the air vibrate around me, and I turn to see a Nightmare crawling up the hill behind me. My arms fall to my sides, and fear tightens in my chest, along with the stomach dropping feeling of disappointment. "Except for you." The dragon stares at me, and I run.

"Ah!" I hear the dragon chasing me, like this is some sort of game of tag. _Gods, just make it go away, i really don't wanna die yet._ I get back into the village and slip making a turn. The dragon shoots fire over my head, hitting a stone wall. I hide behind the first pole I can find: it's a torch, the thick wooden base just wide enough to hide me from view. I gasp as I hear the dragon shoot a stream of fire at the pole, and keep my arms close to my chest as I feel the pole burn behind me.

I look around the pole to see if the dragon is still there, and I feel something breathe down my neck. I swallow, and turn to face the Nightmare on the other side. Before I can even let out a shout of panic, a red blur flies at the dragon, throwing itself onto its snout. They both go rolling away.

The blur stands up, and I see that it is, in fact, my father. Of course, Why does that not surprise me?

The Nightmare tries to shoot fire at my dad, but only manages a small mouthful. It burps pitifully.

"You're all out," my father growls. He leaps at the dragon, punching it under its chin, hitting it until it cowers and flies away. He turns to face me, eyes burning in anger. The pole that was hiding me crashes, and I wince. The burning part of the torch rolls away, wreaking all sorts of havoc and making all sorts of noise down in the lower parts of the village.

"Sorry, Dad." The torch rolls over the dragons my dad had trapped earlier, and they shake their nets free. I watch helplessly as they fly off with some of our sheep. Everyone has gathered in a circle, and i can feel dozens of pairs of angry viking eyes staring me down.

"Ok, but i hit a Night Fury," I try. "Ah!" My dad grabs me by my collar and pulls me away. "It's not like the last few times, Dad! I - I - I really actually hit it. You guys were busy, and I had a very clear shot. It went down just off Raven Point. Let's get a search party-"

"Stop! Just… stop. Every time you step outside, disaster follows. Can you not see I have bigger problems? Winter is almost here and I have an entire village to feed!" he yells. I look around and lean in a bit.

"I mean, between you and me, the village could do with a little less feeding, don;t you think?"

"This isn't a joke, Hiccup! Why can't you follow the simplest orders?"

"I - I - I - I can't stop myself! I see a dragon and I have to just…" I twist my arms, showing how I would snap a dragon's neck, "kill it, you know? It's who I am, Dad." My dad groans and rubs his temple.

"Oh, you're many things, Hiccup. But a dragon killer is not one of them." I sigh. "Get back to the house. Make sure he gets there," he says louder, nodding to Gobber. Gobber walks towards me and cuffs me on the back of my head. I can't find it in me to rise to his provocation. "I have his mess to clean up."

Upon hearing those words, my heart sinks a little more. _Great job, Hiccup. _

As Gobber escorts me back to my house, I hear Ruffnut chortling at me.

"Quite the performance," her twin sneers.

"I've never seen anyone mess up so badly," Snotlout adds. "That helped!"

"Thank you, thank you, I was trying," I say. Astrid examines her axe disinterestedly. _Wow, I can't even get a reaction from her. I shot down a fucking Night Fury, and she still won't look at me._

I hear Gobber shove Snotlout behind me, and I can't help but feel a bit better.

"I really did hit one," I tell him as we come up to the house.

"Sure, Hiccup," he humours me.

"He never listens."

"Runs in the family."

"-and, and when he does, it's always with this disappointed scowl, like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich." I puff my chest and adopt my dad's accent. "'Excuse me, barmaid. I'm afraid you brought me the wrong offspring. I ordered an extra large boy with beefy arms, extra guts and glory on the side. This here, this is a talking fishbone!'"

"Now, you're thinking about this all wrong. It's not so much what you look like, it's what's _inside _that he can't stand." A beat.

"Thank you, for summing that up." I turn to go into the house.

"Look, the point it, stop trying so hard to be something you're not."

"I just wanna be one of you guys," I say. I walk into the house, and Gobber sighs behind me.

I shut the door behind me and race through the house, running out through the back door. _Gotta find that dragon. _

Back in the great hall, all of the viking warriors had gathered. Stoick the Vast, chieftain of the town of Berk, had issued a meeting. He glared down at the map of the nearby ocean and then up at the warriors.

"Either we finish them, or they finish us. It's the only way we'll be rid of them," he exclaims. "If we find the nest and destroy it, the dragons will leave. They'll find another home!" He stabs a corner drawn over with in swirling mist. The dragons' nest was somewhere in there, and they would find it. Stoick would find it, if it was the last thing he did. He had a personal score to settle with the dragons.

"One more search, before the ice sets in."

"Those ships never come back," someone protests.

"We're vikings," he says. "It's an occupational hazard! Now, who's with me?" There is a small murmur of doubt, and Stoick leans away from the table, a spark of mischief in his eyes. "Alright. Those who stay will look after Hiccup." Immediately, there was an enthusiastic cry. Stoick nodded in satisfaction, but he wasn't sure he should be proud that he'd used taking care of his son as an ultimatum and convinced so many vikings to do his bidding. Surely, Hiccup wasn't that bad when not messing things up?

"Aye, that's more like it." The room clears, and Stoick moves towards Gobber, who is taking a swig from the tankard he has replaced his left hand with.

"Right," Gobber says, tapping the table with his tankard. "I'll pack my undies."

"No, I need you to stay and train some new recruits," Stoick says.

"Oh, perfect. And while I'm busy, Hiccup can cover the stall. Molten steel, razor-sharp blades, lots of time to himself. What could possibly go wrong?" Gobber says ironically. He takes a swig from his hand. Stoick groans.

"Urgh, what am I going to do with him, Gobber?"

"Put him in training."

"No, I'm serious," Stoick says a bit louder.

"So am I!"

"He'd be killed before you let the first dragon out of its cage."

"Oh, you don't know that," Gobber waves a hand dismissively.

"I do, actually," Stoick protests.

"No, you don't."

"No. I do."

"No, you don't!"

"Listen, you know what he's like." Stoick gets up and paces nervously. "From the time he could _crawl_ he's been… doesn't listen, he has the attention span of a sparrow." Gobber chokes a bit on his mead, and his false tooth falls into his cup. "I take him fishing, and he goes hunting for - for trolls!" Gobber whirls around and points his tankard at Stoick.

"Trolls exist! They steal your socks. But only the left ones, what's with that?" He drinks again.

"When I was a boy-" Stoick begins.

"Oh, here we go."

"-my father told me to bang my head against a rock, and I did it!" Gobber fished through his tankard to find his tooth. "I thought it was crazy, but I didn't question him. And you know what happened?"

"You got a headache," Gobber says, hammering his tooth back into place with the bottom of his cup.

"That rock split in two. It taught me what a viking could _do_, Gobber. He could - he could crush mountains, level forests, tame seas!"He gesticulates wildly to emphasize his point. "Even as a boy, I knew what I was, what I had to become. Hiccup is not that boy." Stoick shakes his head despairingly. _Well, he's obviously not that boy. He's not you, Stoick, _Gobber thinks, _much as you'd like him to be. _

"You can't stop him, Stoick. You can _only_ prepare him. I know it seems hopeless, but the truth is you won't always be around to protect him. He's going to get out there again. He's probably out there now."

I scratch another mark unto my notebook, marking another place where the dragon is _not._ I sigh in frustration.

"Urgh!" I scratch black lines all over my map, and close my notebook, tucking it into its place in a pocket in my vest.

"Oh, the gods hate me. Some people lose their knife, or a mug. No, not me. I manage to lose and _entire dragon_!" I swipe a branch out of my way spitefully, and it whips back into my face.

"Oh, fuck! Thor's hammer, that hurt like a bitch, argh!" I rub my eye and look up at the tree. Its trunk is snapped in two, and a trail of broken trees and a dent in the earth follow it. My breath catches in excitement.

_Is it the dragon?_

I scramble down the path, sidestepping roots and fallen branches, trying my hardest not to die.

The land sloped upwards, and as I come to the top of the hill, my heart stutters and I gasp loudly.

Because right there, not so far from where I stand, is a dragon. I duck down to the earth as fast as I can, praying that it hasn't seen me, or, even better, that it's dead. _Oh, gods, please let it be dead._

I carefully look over the hill's crest, and it's still there. Not a figment of my imagination, or a product of some of the strange-smelling smoke that comes from some of the village torches, but real. Tangible. A sleek looking, black dragon, its wings and legs tangled in a mess of rope.

I quickly feel for my knife and hold it out in front of me with both hands, my breath still coming much too fast.

I sneak up to the dragon, hiding behind rocks and my knife. When I approach it, it doesn't move. _Oh, thank Hel, it's dead. _

"Oh, wow. I - I… I did it! Ohhh, I did it! This, this… this fixes everything! Yes!" I bring one foot onto the dragon's flank. "I have brought down this mighty beast!" Suddenly, the creature beneath me shrugs me off with a roar, and I jump backwards, heart startled into fluttering at dangerous speeds again.

I press my back against a rock and try to catch my breath. I hold my knife out in front of me and approach the dragon again. I can hear the deep sound of its breath now, and see the rise and fall of its sides. My eyes scan the dragon: its tail is twisted with rope, its legs are gently moving in time with its breathing, and its wings strain against the pressure of the rope.

A single green eye stares me down, a slit of black pupil trained on me and my movements.

I look away from its eye, and point my knife where its heart would be. I glance at its eye again as it lets out a pitiful grunt. My arms shake with guilt about what I'll soon do. I exhale slowly, and tear my eyes from his.

"I'm gonna kill you, dragon. Then I'll cut out your heart and take it to my father." I adjust my grip on my knife, and point it down to the dragon's heart. "I am a viking," I whisper. _Wow, that was pathetic. _"I am a viking!" I roar at it. The dragon groans again. I close my eyes against the sight of his scared green eye and lift my knife over my head. My breath is coming in pants, and my heart is thundering in my chest.

Against my better judgement, I open my eyes. I see the dragon looking at me fearfully, and I shut them again. The dragon moans sadly, and I open my eyes to see his head laid on the ground, eye shut in resignation.

I let out a deep breath, and let my arms fall downwards, letting them hit my head.

"Urgh!" I groan. _I can't do it, I can't fucking do it. First viking ever too scared to kill an immobilised dragon. Pathetic. _But as I look down at his trapped limbs, I feel even worse.

"I did this," I say softly. I turn to leave, but an idea suddenly hits me. An idea that stems mostly from guilt, but that only makes it more powerful.

Before I can change my mind, I set to slicing through the ropes. As soon as the ropes loosen enough, the dragon jumps up, one of its paws pressed to my neck, my head leaning back against a rock. I feel the dragon's deep growl in the beating of my heart, feel his searing eyes stare at me angrily.

_Oh, gods, this is it. This is the end._ It's close enough that I can see individual scales on its head, and the dust that lines the space between them. His nostrils flare with each breath, and I would almost be reminded of a rabbit, but that would be crazy.

The dragon opens its mouth slowly, and I shut my eyes, praying that a fiery death is not as painful as it sounds. I feel the weight of his paw lift off of my neck, and he stamps it down into the ground beside my head. A head-splitting growl comes out of his mouth, and a rush of hot air hits my face. Suddenly, the heat is gone, and I see the dragon leap away, seemingly out of balance, and fall into one the valley below.

I feel my chest, feel my heart beating erratically under my fingers. But I'm alive. Oh, thank Yggdrasil, I'm alive.

I breathe for a moment, and then get up on shaky legs. My ears ring, and the world spins around me. My legs give out, and with a broken, too-high noise, I slip to the floor, knife sliding out of my grip, and the world goes black.


	2. Chapter 2

So here's the new chapter. Bit more original material in this one. I apologize if Astrid seems a bit happy, but I dont believe she can go from sullen teenager to brilliant, sarcastic and playful young adult in the space of half a movie. she must be happier at heart than she seems to be in the movie, so I've done my best to show that here. Many thanks to my two reviewers, you two help a lot! Enjoy the new chapter, and do let me know what you think.

Chapter Two: In Which I Am Coerced Into Dragon Training

I try to close the front door as softly as I can, and I wince when it squeaks and clanks shut. My dad is stoking the fire somewhat angrily, so I hope he hasn't noticed me.

I run to the stairs, and I get partway up before my dad calls me.

"Hiccup."

"Dad, uh… uh, I have to talk to you, Dad," I say, slowly climbing down the stairs to face him.

"I need to speak with you, too, son," he says, clasping his hands.

"-I dont want to fight dragons."

"-I think it's time you learnt to fight dragons," we chorus. I look at him, slightly alarmed.

"What?" we say at the same time again.

"Ye - uh. You go first," he says.

"No. No, _you _go first," I say. He breathes in and clasps his hands again. Maybe this is a nervous tic for him, though we've not had enough talks for me to have noticed this before. He's usually wildly gesticulating in anger.

"All right," he sighs. "You get your wish. Dragon training. You start in the morning."

"Oooh, man, I should have gone first." I pull nervously at my hair and scratch the back of my head. "Cause I was thinking, you know, we have a… a surplus of dragon-fighting vikings, but do we have enough _break-making_ vikings, or small-home-repair vikings?"

"You'll need this," he says as he drops an axe in my hands. I barely manage to catch it.

"Argh!" I stumble down the last steps under the weight of the axe. "I don't want to fight dragons." My dad laughs outright.

"Oh, come on. Yes you do," he says, and turns around as if the conversation is over. I follow him.

"Rephrase: Dad, I _can't _kill dragons," I stress.

"But you _will _kill dragons," he says. _Oh, thank you for showing faith in my dragon-slaying abilities now that I don't want it! _

"No, I'm really extra-sure that I won't."

"It's time, Hiccup."

"Can you not hear me?"

"This is serious, son. When you carry this axe," he straightens the axe in my hands, "you carry all of us with you." _It certainly feels heavy enough for me to believe that, _I think. "Which means you walk like us, you talk like us, you think like us." _I didn't know being one of them entailed being _exactly _like them. _"No more of… this."

"You just gestured to all of me," I say, rolling my eyes. _Seems to be a common opinion as of late. _

"Deal?"

"This conversation is feeling very one-sided," I complain.

"_Deal?_" he asks more forcibly. I sigh.

"Deal," I say meekly. He hoists a basket onto his shoulder.

"Good." He pauses, and makes a fist for me. "Train hard. I'll be back. Probably," he adds.

"And I'll be here. Maybe." _If a dragon doesn't roast me alive, first. _The door slams behind him.

The sun had fully risen after my dad and his fleet left, and I have yet to go down to breakfast.

We vikings like to do everything en-masse, so when one of us eats, we all eat. The dining hall barely fits all of us, but I've never had much of a problem with space. I'm just the right size to slip past and in between everybody, and they don't necessarily notice me.

The clearest space is in the back of the room, where all the kids my age have their own table, the little kids have their own, and there is a space left expressly for mothers who want to breastfeed their babies. I'm usually sitting at the breastfeeding table, since it's usually empty. Mothers prefer to stay at home to feed their children, and rightly so. But sometimes, when there is a mother, I always give her her privacy, and sit on the far edge of the teenagers' table.

Today, of course, there aren't nearly as many people, the fleet having just left not long ago. I grab a mug of sheep's milk and a plate of fish. Not an appetising combination, I know, but food is food.

I walk right past the table where Gobber is sitting with the other kids my age, and make a beeline for an empty table nearby.

"Uh-uh, Hiccup. Over here," Gobber says. Today, he has a long sickle-like hand, and he points to his table using it. I make a face in protest, but Gobber is unfazed, beckoning me over once again. My head falls back in annoyance and I stalk grumpily to the table, scanning who is in attendance: Ruffnut, Tuffnut, Snotlout, Fishlegs, Gobber, and, of course, Astrid. Five pairs of eyes follow me, and Astrid stares at her cup disinterestedly.

"Nice of you to join the party, Hiccup. Odd to see you being so social," he says meaningfully.

"Yeah, well. I thought I'd say hi." I pause. "Hi." I turn and try to walk back to the empty table I saw earlier, but Gobber hooks me by the collar and sets me down next to him. "Ok," I say as I hit the wooden bench. Snotlout sneers at me. The twins snicker to themselves. Astrid ignores me. Fishlegs is the only one who looks at me somewhat sympathetically, and I wonder if he might be my only chance at making a friend in this whole endeavor.

"So, anyways, I was totally this close to killing that Gronkle," Snotlout boasts, continuing a story that must have started before I got there.

"Uh, no you weren't," Ruffnut says in her scratchy voice.

"Yeah, more like this close to running home crying," snickers Tuffnut. The twins guffaw together, much too loudly for how unfunny Tuffnut's retort was, and I roll my eyes. Snotlout protests this statement.

"I was not! I threw my bucket at its head, and I totally knocked it out," he says. I huff a sigh into my mug and take a sip. When I put my mug down, I see Astrid looking at me over the top of hers. My heart stutters for a moment, but my eyes are fixed on hers. She tilts her mug up and drinks and then slams it down onto the table.

"What? What are you looking at?" she hisses. Snotlout's attempts to soothe his bruised ego stop, and even the twins stop chortling. Gobber looks on with one eye, but otherwise pays no heed.

"No-nothing," I stammer. "You're just… right in front of me. Where else am I supposed to look?" I ask timidly.

"I don't care. Somewhere else. You're creeping me out," she glowers. I sigh.

"Sorry, sorry." I look back down to my cup, and Astrid turns her glare to the others. Snotlout clears his throat and Fishlegs's eyes dart around, slightly panicky.

"You guys are all goin' down. I'm gonna be the one who kills the dragon," says Tuffnut. I let out a sigh of relief; trust one of the twins to break up the tension. Ruffnut groans like she's heard this before - and very likely she has - and Snotlout argues. With the pleasant conversation back, I sneak another glance at Astrid, She's in the middle of taking another sip from her mug, but she catches me looking and sends a glare over the rim. I quickly look away, not wanting to provoke any more angry questions and/or demands from her.

Astrid's mug comes back down onto the table.

"Well, all of you are competition now," she says offhandedly, interrupting a conversation about various dragon-killing techniques the others had picked up from their parents. Fishlegs had a surprising amount of knowledge on all the dragons and their strengths and weaknesses. I make a note to ask him what he knows about night furies. "You can trust that _I _won't be giving away my secrets," she says pointedly. Gobber nods.

"She's right. You are all competing against each other, now. At the end of this series of lessons, you can all hold hands around the campfire and share techniques. But for now, the more secrets you have, the more tricks hidden up your sleeves, the better." He looks at the sun through one of the windows. "Dragon training starts at half sun-up, and ends when I say so. All of you go… do something until that time. Don't exert yourselves, because I will not go easy on you, and nor will the dragons." And with that, Gobber stands up and picks up his plate. "Enjoy your breakfast."

We all stare at him as he goes. As soon as he leaves, Snotlout starts up again.

"Yeah, but how difficult could it be to kill a dragon? You just spray some water on it and then give it a left hook. Not that hard," he says.

"I'm pretty sure it's not that easy. Also it depends on the kind of dragon, like if its a Scaldron, then spraying it with water won't help. Cause, cause Scaldrons spray boiling water on you, and-" Fishlegs trails off as he sees us staring at him. "Well. Yeah. So. Depends on the dragon," he finished quietly.

"Well, whatever. Not like I'll ever face a Scaldron, anyways. Those things never show up, the cowards," Tuffnut sneers. Ruffnut's nose crinkles in amusement.

"That's a lame excuse to not be prepared to fight a dragon," Astrid snorts. "Just because a dragon is rare, doesn't mean you shouldn't be prepared to kill it. If fighting dragons was easy, the war would have been over generations ago."

"You're right, babe," Snotlout says. "I'm gonna be ready to kill all sorts of dragons!" Astrid looks at the window, like Gobber did, and she grabs her plate and stands.

"Dragon training is in an hour," she says. Without saying anything else, she leaves. I quickly scrape the last bit of my food into my mouth and get up after her. I catch her just as she drops her plate onto a counter. I stack mine on top of her and walk beside her.

"So… Astrid. Weren't your parents afraid that gnomes and trolls would get you? Your name is distinctly… pretty. Un-viking-like," I say. She shoots me a side glare.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Well… when I was a kid and asked my dad why viking names are so ugly, he told me that gnomes and trolls would be somehow repelled by our names. Though, to be fair, it's not like our charming viking demeanor wouldn't do that anyways," I say. Astrid makes a small sound, and I turn around to look at her. I'm surprised to see her almost smiling. Not quite, but it's so much better than her looking like she wants to hit me. Then she flicks her bangs to the side with a toss of her head, and her stony front is back.

"My parents operate under the assumption that by the time they can't offer me their protection, I'll be tough enough to defend myself from all manner of evil creatures." She cuts me a meaningful look. "I don't need a name to protect me." She walks away briskly.

"Ok! Great talking to you!" I call after her. She doesn't turn around. I fill my cheeks with air and then let it out with a snort. "Good job, Hiccup. Real nice story." Astrid disappears into her house, and reemerges a couple seconds after, axe in hand. She walks off towards the woods, twirling her axe.

_That looks heavy enough that I wouldn't be able to carry it, _I think to myself. _I bet she could throw it to me from there, and I wouldn't even be able to lift it. _

She's likely going to practice exactly that: her axe throwing skills. Personally, I've always prefered weapons that are lighter. In part because I have a chance of knowing how to handle them, and in part because that's all I've been allowed with. Other than the scrap metal and damaged weaponry in Gobber's shop, the only weapon I've really learned how to use without hurting myself are a knife and the bow and arrow. I don't imagine either would help me very much in fighting dragons. Knives are too small and would cause very little damage, and I also run the risk of death because I'd have to be super close to use it. The arrows would be great, in theory, but dragonhide is too tough for arrows to pierce.

This puts an idea into my head, and with it in mind, I pat my vest to make sure I have my knife, and follow her into the woods.

We walk into the forest, me trying to be as quiet as I can, and she plants herself solidly in front of a big tree. She breathes in and out a couple times, and then raises her axe.

She throws her axe with such force that my eyes can barely follow it as it lodges itself in the tree's stump. She walks up to the tree and pulls her axe back out. I realize too late that when she walks back, she'll turn around and see me.

"What the fuck are you doing, Hiccup?" she asks. She throws her axe again. "I thought we were done talking." She stalks back and throws.

"We, uh… we were," I say slowly.

"Well then?" she gestures to me questioningly with her axe.

"I was just… I was going to practice my knife throwing," using the weapons route I'd chosen earlier.

"Your knife throwing?" she raises an eyebrow incredulously.

"Yes." I reach into my vest and pull out my knife. She smirks, amusement twinkling in her eyes.

"Well, I mean, who am I to stop you from practicing. You can't get any worse or any more useless. Let's see it," she says.

"See what?"

"Your knife throwing. Duh." I blink stupidly.

"You're gonna… you're gonna watch me?" I squeak.

"Well, they do say that you learn something best by teaching it to someone else," she says amusedly. I swallow.

"Ok," I say meekly. I adjust my grip on my knife and turn to face the tree. I take a deep breath and pull my knife back to throw.

"Stop." Astrid's voice interrupts me just as my arm starts moving forward. I stop and look at her. "You can't even hold your knife right," she said. She pulls my knife from my grip and weighs it in her hand. "Your whole knife is made of metal, and your handle is covered in leather."

"Yes, I know that much. I was there while Gobber made it for me," I said.

"I wasn't. Finished," she glares. "Which _means_ that your handle is heavier than the blade. You always throw your knife so the heavier part is towards the target. So-"

"So I hold onto the blade?" I ask. She blinks.

"Never interrupt me."

"Sorry." She flips the knife in the air and catches it by the blade. "How do you not slice your hand open like that?" I ask her.

"Practice. The first few times, I sliced my palm open, but I got a scar out of the whole ordeal, so it's worth it," she says.

"Oh, right, because pain is so much fun."

"No, but it looks cool," she grins. The smile scares me, cause I'm not sure it's a friendly one. More predatorial than anything.

I swallow.

"So… what's next?" I ask a little higher than i would have liked." She shifts her feet in the dirt until her left foot is further forward than her right.

"All your weight on your stronger foot, and your weaker one in front. Pull back your arm, and as you throw, shift your weight onto your other foot. Then," she throws the knife, and it sinks deeply into the tree, "follow through." I look at her confusedly, and she rolls her eyes. "That means let your hand keep moving."

"Oh. Ok."

"Well? Go get your knife."

"Right!" I scurry off to get my knife. I grip the handle and tug, but it's stuck in the bark. "Hey, Astrid!" I call and look behind me.

"See you at dragon training!" she says, already running back to the village. I look up at the sky, seeing that the sun is getting pretty high. With my running talents, I'll be late for sure. I look at my knife and pull at it slightly desperately. It doesn't budge.

"Urgh! Fine!" I leave my knife where it is and run back to the village.

I burst into my house and look around.

"Where is that thing?" I ask myself, looking for the battle axe my dad gave me yesterday. I find it by the fire, and run back out, considerably slower now that I'm weighed down by the axe.

I get there just in time to hear the twins talking about the various injuries they'd like to sustain in dragon training.

"Yeah, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it," Astrid comments lightly, flipping her hair and looking around excitedly. I can almost feel the dragon-killing intent coming out of her.

Her comment is so much like earlier that I feel the need to respond similarly.

"Yeah, no kidding right? Pain. Love it," I respond, trying to sound as moody and teenager-istic as possible.

"Oh, great, who let him in?" asks Tuffnut, slumping on his spear.

"Let's get started!" Gobber interrupts. "The recruit who does best will win the honour of killing his first dragon in front of the entire village," he says, twisting his sickle-hand in imitation of ripping out a dragon heart, and I cringe.

"Why 'his'?" I hear Astrid say to Ruffnut. She shrugs non-committally, but Astrid looks bothered. Understandable, because she'll probably be the one to kill the dragon anyway.

"Hiccup already killed a Night Fury, so… does that disqualify him, or...?" Snoutlout asks, rolling his eyes. The twins chortle, and I can't help but think they look like skinny Gronckles.

"Can I transfer to the class with the cool vikings?" Tuffnut asks, walking away. Astrid cuts him a glare.

"Not that you're not a cool viking, You're the coolest of the vikings," tries Snotlout.

"There is no other class, dipshit," she hisses. There voices trail off as they get further away. A hand drops down on my shoulder and I turn to see Gobber.

"Don't worry. You're small and you're weak. That'll make you less of a target. They'll see you as sick, or insane, and go after the more viking-like teens instead," he laughs. "Behind these doors are just a few of the many species you will learn to fight. The deadly Nadder-"

"Speed eight, armour sixteen," Fishlegs says beside me.

"The hideous Zippleback-"

"Plus eleven stealth, times two."

"The monstrous Nightmare-"

"Firepower fifteen."

"The terrible Terror-"

"Attack eight, venom twelve!"

"Can you stop that?!" Gobber yells. Fishlegs's eyes go wide like he hadn't even noticed he was doing it. Gobber's hand rests on the lever before the last cage. "Aaaand, the Gronckle."

"Jaw strength eight," Fishlegs whispers to me.

"Whoa, who, wait. Aren't you gonna teach us first?" Snoutlout asks, panicked.

"I believe in learning on the job," Gobber says. He pulls down the lever, and a Gronckle comes careening out of its pen. "Today is about survival. If you get blasted," the gronckle smashes into the wall, "you're dead. Quick! What's the first thing you're going to need?"

"A doctor?" I ask.

"Plus five speed?" Fishlegs asks, and I wonder what he does in his spare time.

"A shield," Astrid says.

"Shield, go!" Gobber commands.

We all scramble to grab shields.

"Your most important piece of equipment is your shield. If you must make a choice between a sword or a shield, take the shield." He helps me attach my shield to my arm and then shoves me towards the dragon. _I did _not _want to go that way, _I think.

The twins argue over a shield, and Fishlegs runs away from the Gronckle.

"Get your hands off my shield!" Tuffnut yells.

"There's like a million shields!" says Ruffnut.

"Take that one, it has a flower on it/ Girls like flowers." Ruffnut tears the shield out of his grip and bashes him on the head with it. "Argh!"

"Oops, now this one has blood on it," she sneers. As they pull on the shield, the Gronckle shoots it with a stream of fire, and the twins fly in opposite directions.

"Tuffnut! Ruffnut! You're out!" he says. The twins look up, disoriented. "Those shields are good for another thing. Noise. Make lots of it to throw off a dragon's aim."

Astrid slams her axe against her shield, and I mimic her.

"All dragons have a limited number of shots. How many does a Gronckle have?"

"Five?" Snotlout tries.

"No, six!" Fishlegs says.

"Correct! Six!" Fishlegs nods proudly. "That's one for each of you!" Gobber says happily. The Gronckle blasts Fishlegs's shield out of his hands, and Gobber calls him out.

"Hiccup, get in there!" Gobber says to me. I'm hiding behind a wooden plank, trying to stay places I won't get killed in.

"Ah!" As i come out of hiding, the dragon blasts the wall next to me. The dragon turns away from me and turns to Astrid and Snotlout.

"So anyway, I moved into my parents' basement. You should come by some time and work out. You look like you work out." Astrid rolls away and a blast of fire hits Snotlout's shield.

"Snotlout, you're done!" Gobber says. _Serves him right, _I think, _flirting while in dragon training. _Astrid stands besides me, eyes scanning the arena, watching the dragon.

"So, I guess it's just me and you, huh?" I ask.

"Nope, just you," she says, gliding away.

"Ah!" My shield flies away in a blast of heat, and I turn to chase it.

"One more shot!" Gobber calls. I can hear the air vibrating around the Gronckle's wings, and I'm reminded of the fat bees that we sometimes see in the summer. "Hiccup!"

I slam back against the wall, and the dragon peers down at me over its wide muzzle. I stare at its teeth and pray to Odin that this dragon won't kill me either.

The Gronckle's mouth opens, and I can see orange light building at the base of its throat.

When the shot comes, it's not where I expected it to be. I cover my head as the wall behind me explodes into pebbles and simmers behind me. I scoot away from the fire.

Gobber has hooked his sickle into the dragon's mouth, and is spinning it back into its pen.

"And that's six. Go back to bed, you overgrown sausage!" he says, throwing the Gronckle into the pen and lowering the log that kept the door closed. "You'll get another chance, don't you worry. Remember: a dragon will always, _always,_ go for the kill," he finished, looking pointedly at me. He pulls me up by the arm and walks away. The others stare at me, but I'm not thinking about them. I'm thinking of that Night Fury. The most fearsome dragon known to vikings, and it let me live where a Gronckle wouldn't have.

Almost before I know it, I'm back in the forest. I'd pulled my knife out of the tree, pouring water on the blade to make it slip more easily, and then planting my feet against the trunk and using my weight to pull. I'd fallen flat on my ass, but I'd gotten my knife back.

I'm back where I cut the Night Fury's ropes, the bolas still on the ground. I weigh them in my hands and remember Gobber's words.

_A dragon will always, _always_, go for the kill. _

"So why didn't you?" I wonder aloud. I set the bolas down and walk in the direction I'd seen the Night Fury fly off in, hoping to find clues as to where it's gone.

I hop over a fallen log and slip between large rocks, and I get to a small bowl that the earth has created. A small lake ripples serenely in the wind, and a couple trees grow around it. The roots of a giant fir grow down into the valley from above, and make it look like there's almost a small house nestled right there between the roots. It's beautiful.

But there's no dragon.

"Well, this was stupid."

Just as I turn to walk away, something black and shiny next to my feet catches my eye. I bend down to pick it up. It's rounded on most sides, and tapers at one end. It gleams iridescent blue-black in the sun, and it feels cool in my hands. I stroke it, feeling the roughness in my hands, and a black shadow streaks across my vision, making a screeching noise.

"Ah!" I fall backwards, shocked at the sudden movement.

It's the Night Fury, trying to scratch its way up and over the wall and fly away. As it begins to fall backwards, it opens its wings and glides over the lake and crashes down onto the ground. It tries again on the other side of the bowl, but it falls back down to the earth, tail curling awkwardly underneath it.

I grab my notebook from inside my vest and draw the Night Fury as it tries to fly out.

"Why don't you just fly away?" I wonder as I finish its tail. I look up and the Night Fury shoots a bolt of blue fire in frustration. I look down at my drawing and rub out one of the flaps on his tail, noticing he should only have one.

He tries to fly away and fails again, twisting to the earth and crashing again. He lands next to the lake, and a small fish breaks the surface of the water. He gets up and carefully moves towards it, and then dunks his head into the water, moving it this way and that to catch a fish. He doesn't.

I stare at it. The dragon, no matter how deadly it is, really is a creature of beauty. My pencil falls out of my hand, and too late I realize that it'll drop down the rounded rock I'm sitting on. My pencil twirls to the ground and makes a small clattering noise.

The dragon looks up at me, its green eyes narrowing. I think I hear a low warning growl, and it's enough for me. I turn tail and run back to the village, thoughts of the Night Fury chasing me back.


End file.
